


Growth

by WhyNotFly



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, I consider it Jonmartin mostly because I love them and I wrote it while loving them, M/M, Monster!Jon, Mostly one-sided Jonelias which is always a lil creepy, Mutilation, Rated M for absolutely zero sexual content but you can tell someone is getting off on it, SPOILER: wingfic, but I'm also exceptionally weak for Jonelias, cancer mention, canon typical Jonmartin, hint: it's Elias, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly
Summary: Part of him is sure Elias is just taking the piss, trying to degrade Jon and remind him where they stand.  But another part of him is terrified of whatever is growing on his back, and if Elias is actually planning to be helpful for once in his goddamn life then Jon doesn’t want to miss out.  And another, even deeper part of him, wants Elias to see them.  Wants his knowing to become Jon’s own.  So he simply scowls and turns around, starts rucking his jumper up enough to expose the bare skin of his lower back.***Something is growing inside Jon.





	1. Chapter 1

“What is happening to me?” Jon storms into Elias’ office, not flinching at the bang of the door hitting the wall from his violent entrance. 

“Ah, Jon.” Elias is waiting for him, hands folded on the desk in front of him, smile thin and smug. “Do come in.”

“Shut up.” Jon lets his anger turn to power in his mouth and asks again, “ **What is happening to me?** ”

Elias pauses, his tongue flicking out to lick his bottom lip, almost as if he’s about to crumble and give Jon everything. But his eyes remain amused and aloof and he breathes out the compulsion before replying with maddening sincerity. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific, Jon. A lot is happening and I’m afraid I only have so many eyes.”

“But one is always. Watching. Me.” Jon speaks with a surety he didn’t have until the moment the words left his mouth. Even before he Knew, though, he suspected, and while Elias’ fixation on him normally left him feeling uncomfortable and exposed, right now he just needed someone who knew what was going on.

Elias’ eyes soften. “Quite right. I must admit, for someone whose job is to know and seek knowledge, it took you a long time to notice. I was waiting rather expectantly for this conversation to happen weeks ago.”

“Well excuse me for not being able to see my own back.”

Growths. That was the only word for them. Two disgusting lumps of flesh swelling on his back. Jon slept naturally curled on his side and had the tendency to slump forward over his desk rather than backwards onto his chair, so they’d never pained him beyond what he could excuse as traditional back pain from stress and overwork. God knows he’d been stressed and overworked recently. But this morning he’d woken up and they’d itched. The placement of them, high up on his shoulder blades, made them difficult to scratch with his hands and only the barest shred of dignity kept him from rubbing up against his bedroom door frame like a cartoon bear. 

Jon barely had enough flexibility to reach down over his shoulder, cramming the crook of his elbow into his nose, and brush his fingers against one. Even just the slight contact sent shivers through him. He was overcome by the desire to rip into it with his nails, tear the itch out of his flesh until it split. But the rational part of his mind was more focused on the odd bumpy shape that had never been there before. When he finally maneuvered himself around in his flat’s tiny bathroom to look at himself, he couldn’t believe his eyes. 

The skin below his shoulders was pulled taut and thin, straining around two lumps almost the size of apples. Jon felt sickness rise in his throat. Unbidden, the image of Gerry’s too-young face popped into his head, and Jon remembered that he was far from invincible. But that couldn’t be right, this wasn’t what tumors looked like. Jon admittedly knew very little about cancer, but he was sure these were far too large. He felt the eyes on him like a prickle of hair on the back of his neck. Elias would know.

“It would help if I could see them.”

Jon blanches, hands curling into fists in the front of his jumper. His instinctual no dies in his throat. Part of him is sure Elias is just taking the piss, trying to degrade Jon and remind him where they stand. But another part of him is terrified of whatever is growing on his back, and if Elias is actually planning to be helpful for once in his goddamn life then Jon doesn’t want to miss out. And another, even deeper part of him, wants Elias to see them. Wants his knowing to become Jon’s own. So he simply scowls and turns around, starts rucking his jumper up enough to expose the bare skin of his lower back.

He doesn’t hear Elias move, but suddenly his hands are there, sliding under the hem of his jumper for just a second before pulling it up in one swift motion. Jon feels an embarrassed heat spread through his chest, his arms caught in the tangle of shirt sleeves by his neck, but Elias’ attention is rapt on the growths on his back. They almost seem to itch more under his gaze. Jon shivers as Elias presses his cold fingers into the swollen skin. His fingers slide carefully around the edge of one and Jon lets out a short cry, his head dropping forward into the tangle of his arms. 

“Sensitive?” Jon can hear the smirk in Elias’ voice, but the question feels oddly genuine.

“I thought you said you knew what this was,” he snapped back.

“I do. That doesn’t mean I’ve ever had the pleasure of…actually witnessing it.”

“It’s worms, isn’t it.”

“Pardon?” Elias pulls his hands away from Jon’s back suddenly, and the aching itch comes back full force. Jon manages to keep himself from leaning back towards Elias’ hands, glad he can’t see his face. 

“Jane Prentiss. I didn’t get all her worms out and they’ve burrowed into me and are nesting in my back.”

Elias hums, contentedly. “A very good guess, Jon, but no. You have enough marks from other gods, it seems Beholding has finally seen fit to grace you with one of our own.”

Jon blinks, and turns to look over his shoulder. Elias is staring at him, and he’s hit with a wave of adoration and pride that makes his stomach turn over. “So, this happened to you?”

“Unfortunately not.” Elias turns, walks back to his desk, and begins to rifle through the drawers. “This is an honor reserved solely for an Archivist. And not just any Archivist, either. Gertrude held the position for over ten times as long as you have and she certainly wasn’t anywhere near this.”

“I suppose I’m supposed to be grateful a god of fear likes me enough to grow something inside me without my consent?” 

“Yes.” Elias pulls a container of hand cream from his desk drawer and pops the cap. He squeezes a generous portion out and Jon can smell the manufactured flowers and cucumbers from across the room. He’s still standing with his jumper around his neck, flushed red like a fool. The cream is the familiar scent of Elias’ damnably soft hands. Jon turns his head away again, a silent concession to what he knows is about to happen.

Elias’ hands on his back are more confident this time, massaging the cream in without stopping at Jon’s twitches and bit off cries. For a spiralling moment Jon thinks of hard plastic pressing into his skin, but it’s not the same. He feels heated and known and worshipped. His legs nearly go out with the overwhelming sensation, but he forces himself to stay standing. Something in him knows that if he goes to his knees before Elias, it would be over. If he fell to his knees before Elias, everything would be lost.

“You’re so beautiful,” Elias is murmuring, has been murmuring, a steady stream of praise and kindness. “Even now, before they’ve grown in you’re so beautiful Jon. You’ve come so far. You’re doing so well.”

“Elias, please,” Jon says, hating the desperation that cracks in his voice. “What is happening to me?”

“You’re growing wings, Jon.” Elias sighs, running a finger down the length of Jon’s spine before stepping back to lean against his desk. “Do try to keep up.” 

***

“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” Martin says, twisting the handle of the knife uncomfortably in his hands. “Melanie would really be much better for this, I mean, it’s her knife.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust Melanie with a literal knife in my back,” Jon scoffs. “She’s been a bit unstable recently.”

“Right. Okay. Fair. But I still, I still really really don’t feel comfortable stabbing you, Jon.”

“Not stabbing me, just—”

“Cutting you open to pull out your...your _wings_ , yeah you mentioned, Jon, I’m not comfortable with that either.”

“Please, Martin.” Jon shuffles around to face him, his knees protesting at the way he’s kneeling on the cold floor of the tunnels. He folds his arms self consciously over his bare chest. “If I trusted anyone else, I’d get them to do it, but it has to be you. We could take a second to relax? I could make you some tea?”

“Tea?” Martin’s hysterical laugh catches in his throat. “I think I need something a little stronger than tea. Except I _shouldn’t_ , because I’m holding a _knife_ , which I am about to use to perform _surgery_ on my _boss_. I don’t even have a degree, Jon!”

“You don’t have a degree?” Jon and Martin both whip around to look at Basira who was walking back into the room with a hefty book in her hand. The cover read _The Bird Almanac_. “I mean, I don’t really care, but seems odd that you’re working here.”

“If you’re not going to be helpful, Basira, leave.” Jon glares up at her, the pain in his back lending extra venom to his voice.

“No need to be upset. I’m being helpful. I’m doing research.”

“Research?”

“Well, judging by the logo of the institute I’d say you’re probably gonna be a barn owl.”

Jon glowers. “I’m not a bloody bird, Basira.”

“You sure?” Basira perches on the edge of a crate, flipping idly through the book. 

“Aren’t they just going to...come out normally?” Martin asks, sounding a little manic. “What if cutting them out early hurts you? Or, or stunts their growth or something?”

“God I hope so,” Jon mutters under his breath. “Listen, Martin. Elias said they will take maybe another week to grow in. And he wants me coming every day to his office so he can check their progress and croon over them and run his fingers over them and…” Jon shudders at the memory, and he can’t quite decide if it’s good or bad, it’s just sensation flooding up and over him. 

Martin is quiet, waiting, and Jon continues. “I refuse to be his pet.”

He feels Basira’s eyes on him and lifts his head to glare at her until she looks back down to her book. He hears Martin shifting around behind him. The air of the tunnels is cold, and the muscles in his back strain and tense. He’s unbearably itchy, but he doesn’t move.

“Okay,” Martin says, softly. “Okay. But stop me if it hurts.”

Jon knows it will hurt, and he also knows that he will not stop Martin no matter what. “I promise.”

Jon closes his eyes, his senses reaching out within the darkness trying to find Martin and the knife and brace for the pain he can’t see coming. When it lands it’s soft, too tentative, a thinly scored line of heat down his shoulder blade. Barely deeper than a papercut. Martin makes a soft, pained sound, as if he’s the one who’s been cut.

“Martin,” Jon begins, wearily.

“The wingspan of a barn owl is around 40 inches. I bet we could do some math and figure out how big yours will get.”

“Basira.”

“You’re going to have to cut deeper, Martin,” Basira chimes in, ignoring Jon. “At least subdermal.”

“R-right. I know. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Martin,” Jon lies.

When the knife comes again it is stronger. Blood runs hot down Jon’s back, catching on his trousers and staining them. Martin hesitates, but keeps going, drawing the knife downward until he’s cleanly bisected the lump. Jon grits his teeth against the pain and wishes he’d thought ahead to biting on his belt or something. 

“Just one more, Jon,” Martin says, unhelpfully. “You’re doing really well. Is it hurting you?”

“Just do it, Martin,” Jon snaps, his eyes still squeezed shut.

The second feels easier, or maybe his focus is just divided with the line of pain pulsing down the sensitive flesh of his already cut open shoulder. When the knife pulls away, Jon doubles over, breathing heavily. His chest aches as unfamiliar muscles pull themselves into use. He is pushing something from his back, a piece of him, like an arm he slept curled up on so that he wakes with it dead and tingling, barely responsive. His back feels sticky, more blood seeping from the wounds, dripping from the edges of whatever has emerged from his back.

Behind him, Martin breathes in. “Oh, Jon.”

“I’ll get some warm water.” Basira stands, too quickly, the book dropping to the ground as she rushes to leave.

Jon wants to faint, but instead he just drops his arms to the ground to support himself. He spreads his...his _wings_ farther, trying to stretch the aching muscles. It is indescribably odd, the sudden consciousness of a new part of your body. He freezes as he feels Martin’s cautious fingers grip the long end feathers and pull, gently extending them as far as they can go. The feeling is indescribable and Jon shakes with it.

“I’m sorry!” Martin pulls his hand back. “I should have asked I just...they’re so beautiful. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” Jon is not okay. His head is swimming. “You can touch them if you want to, it doesn’t hurt.”

Martin hesitates a second before reaching out again, not minding the blood that drips onto his fingers as he slides them through Jon’s soft feathers. Jon leans back a bit and lets out a soft, involuntary moan.

“Oh, Jon,” Martin whispers. “Oh, _Jon_.”


	2. On His Knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon falls to his knees in Elias' office and his life takes a different path. There's more than one way to grow wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind words on the main story of Growth T-T Most of the comments were pretty hype for a purely jonelias version of this story and well....I'm exactly the same way so I wrote that. I'm nothing if not easily pressured into things by comments.
> 
> This story is an alternate path of the original, so for ease of people who want to read the version they like best as a complete story, I've included the beginning again. It's not very long before they diverge, but if you're familiar with the beginning and don't want to re-read you can skip down to the paragraph that begins "Elias' hands on his back are more confident this time".
> 
> Enjoy!

“What is happening to me?” Jon storms into Elias’ office, not flinching at the bang of the door hitting the wall from his violent entrance. 

“Ah, Jon.” Elias is waiting for him, hands folded on the desk in front of him, smile thin and smug. “Do come in.”

“Shut up.” Jon lets his anger turn to power in his mouth and asks again, “ **What is happening to me?** ”

Elias pauses, his tongue flicking out to lick his bottom lip, almost as if he’s about to crumble and give Jon everything. But his eyes remain amused and aloof and he breathes out the compulsion before replying with maddening sincerity. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific, Jon. A lot is happening and I’m afraid I only have so many eyes.”

“But one is always. Watching. Me.” Jon speaks with a surety he didn’t have until the moment the words left his mouth. Even before he Knew, though, he suspected, and while Elias’ fixation on him normally left him feeling uncomfortable and exposed, right now he just needed someone who knew what was going on.

Elias’ eyes soften. “Quite right. I must admit, for someone whose job is to know and seek knowledge, it took you a long time to notice. I was waiting rather expectantly for this conversation to happen weeks ago.”

“Well excuse me for not being able to see my own back.”

Growths. That was the only word for them. Two disgusting lumps of flesh swelling on his back. Jon slept naturally curled on his side and had the tendency to slump forward over his desk rather than backwards onto his chair, so they’d never pained him beyond what he could excuse as traditional back pain from stress and overwork. God knows he’d been stressed and overworked recently. But this morning he’d woken up and they’d _itched_. The placement of them, high up on his shoulder blades, made them difficult to scratch with his hands and only the barest shred of dignity kept him from rubbing up against his bedroom door frame like a cartoon bear. 

Jon barely had enough flexibility to reach down over his shoulder, cramming the crook of his elbow into his nose, and brush his fingers against one. Even just the slight contact sent shivers through him. He was overcome by the desire to rip into it with his nails, tear the itch out of his flesh until it split. But the rational part of his mind was more focused on the odd bumpy shape that had never been there before. When he finally maneuvered himself around in his flat’s tiny bathroom to look at himself, he couldn’t believe his eyes.  
The skin below his shoulders was pulled taut and thin, straining around two lumps almost the size of apples. Jon felt sickness rise in his throat. Unbidden, the image of Gerry’s too-young face popped into his head, and Jon remembered that he was far from invincible. But that couldn’t be right, this wasn’t what tumors looked like. Jon admittedly knew very little about cancer, but he was sure these were far too large. He felt the eyes on him like a prickle of hair on the back of his neck. Elias would know.

“It would help if I could see them.”

Jon blanches, hands curling into fists in the front of his jumper. His instinctual no dies in his throat. Part of him is sure Elias is just taking the piss, trying to degrade Jon and remind him where they stand. But another part of him is terrified of whatever is growing on his back, and if Elias is actually planning to be helpful for once in his goddamn life then Jon doesn’t want to miss out. And another, even deeper part of him, wants Elias to see them. Wants his knowing to become Jon’s own. So he simply scowls and turns around, starts rucking his jumper up enough to expose the bare skin of his lower back.

He doesn’t hear Elias move, but suddenly his hands are there, sliding under the hem of his jumper for just a second before pulling it up in one swift motion. Jon feels an embarrassed heat spread through his chest, his arms caught in the tangle of shirt sleeves by his neck, but Elias’ attention is rapt on the growths on his back. They almost seem to itch more under his gaze. Jon shivers as Elias presses his cold fingers into the swollen skin. His fingers slide carefully around the edge of one and Jon lets out a short cry, his head dropping forward into the tangle of his arms. 

“Sensitive?” Jon can hear the smirk in Elias’ voice, but the question feels oddly genuine.

“I thought you said you knew what this was,” he snapped back.

“I do. That doesn’t mean I’ve ever had the pleasure of…actually witnessing it.”

“It’s worms, isn’t it.”

“Pardon?” Elias pulls his hands away from Jon’s back suddenly, and the aching itch comes back full force. Jon manages to keep himself from leaning back towards Elias’ hands, glad he can’t see his face. 

“Jane Prentiss. I didn’t get all her worms out and they’ve burrowed into me and are nesting in my back.”

Elias hums, contentedly. “A very good guess, Jon, but no. You have enough marks from other gods, it seems Beholding has finally seen fit to grace you with one of our own.”

Jon blinks, and turns to look over his shoulder. Elias is staring at him, and he’s hit with a wave of adoration and pride that makes his stomach turn over. “So, this happened to you?”

“Unfortunately not.” Elias turns, walks back to his desk, and begins to rifle through the drawers. “This is an honor reserved solely for an Archivist. And not just any Archivist, either. Gertrude held the position for over ten times as long as you have and she certainly wasn’t anywhere near this.”

“I suppose I’m supposed to be grateful a god of fear likes me enough to grow something inside me without my consent?” 

“Yes.” Elias pulls a container of hand cream from his desk drawer and pops the cap. He squeezes a generous portion out and Jon can smell the manufactured flowers and cucumbers from across the room. He’s still standing with his jumper around his neck, flushed red like a fool. The cream is the familiar scent of Elias’ damnably soft hands. Jon turns his head away again, a silent concession to what he knows is about to happen.

Elias’ hands on his back are more confident this time, massaging the cream in without stopping at Jon’s twitches and bit off cries. For a spiralling moment Jon thinks of hard plastic pressing into his skin, but it’s not the same. He feels heated and known and worshipped. It’s too much all at once, he can’t process it. His legs turn to jelly beneath him and he can’t help but fall to his knees. 

Even without Elias’ hands there Jon can still feel the fingers tracing and pushing. The muscles in his back spasm in unfamiliar ways and he feels the growths moving, twitching. He leans forward until his arms and forehead hit the floor, back arched upwards. He just needs a second to catch his breath, just a second to focus and organize his thoughts. But before he can gather himself, he hears Elias walk around and kneel in front of him, putting a hand on the back of his head.

“I imagine it must be a bit overwhelming.” Elias’ fingers curl gently into the short hairs at the nape of Jon’s neck. Jon can’t tell if it’s meant to be comforting or keep him from raising his head. Perhaps it’s both. 

“It wouldn’t be if you would just tell me anything ever.”

“We’ve been over this, Jon,” Elias says with a professional sigh as if his Archivist is asking about a budget cut in a meeting instead of kneeling half shirtless and prostrate before him. “If you don’t learn it on your own it’s pointless. You’ve come this far on your own merits and I have every faith you’ll continue along brilliantly without my holding your hand at every bump in the road.”

“Bump in the road?” Jon pushes himself up to sitting, and despite his brief flash of worry Elias lets his hand fall away from Jon’s head without comment. “Elias, I have something growing in my back that could be killing me I think I’m allowed to consider it a pressing concern.”

“Oh please, Jon. Don’t be so dramatic. You’re not dying.”

“How should I know?”

“You should at least trust I would never be so remiss as to simply let my Archivist die.”

“Well you do have a bad track record with keeping them alive,” Jon snaps, folding his arms resolutely over his chest. Elias looks almost chastened by the words, as if finally something has stuck to that impeccable ego of his. The silence lingers for a while before Elias reaches out again, bridging the space between them with a hand gently tracing the hair behind Jon’s ear, coming down the line of his jaw, and finally gripping his chin lightly.

“Perhaps it has been partially my fault. I have not properly impressed upon you how important you are. How special. Far more than Gertrude ever was.”

Jon’s eyes are soft and his voice is cracked and quiet. “You promised me, Elias. You promised I was still human.”

“I said humanity was a mutable concept. You still bleed, Jon, you’re still mortal.”

“Elias, please.” Jon trembles in Elias’ grasp, under his gaze that both loves and dissects him. “Please tell me what’s happening to me.”

“Hmm,” Elias hums, his manner frustratingly composed. His eyes fall to Jon’s shoulder and he can’t help but feel seen straight through. “This is a delicate stage in your development. But you have come so far in such a short time. That is deserving of some kind of reward.”

Elias nods, seeming to come to some sort of conclusion and drops his hand from Jon’s chin. He stands, leaving Jon to struggle to turn on his knees and watch as he walks over to his desk. He begins shuffling through his papers with a brisk efficiency.

“If you want your answers, come with me. There are preparations that need to be made.”

“Come with...” Jon is struggling to follow the sudden energy shift. “You mean out of the Institute?”

“Yes.”

“But...” Jon cocks his head. “It’s the mid afternoon. We have work.”

“I think the particulars of your condition are more than enough to warrant a sick day. And if you’re concerned about your health, I assure you this trip will be enlightening enough to keep you well sated.”

Elias looks down at Jon still kneeling on the floor with a dazed expression. “Don’t you want your answers, Jon?”

Jon hurries to his feet, rushing to pull his shirt back down. He winces slightly as it scathes over his back, but nothing could distract him now. Elias smiles at his scrambling, never taking his eyes off him once.

“Come along, then.”

***

Jon had never really pictured Elias outside the Institute. When he thought about him it was always framed with the impossibly wide oak desk between them, Elias sitting smug and tight-lipped in front of plain beige walls. Maybe it was easier to see him that way, simply the evil king on his throne instead of a person with a life outside of watching Jon and his coworkers and orchestrating plots.

Leitner’s words _in his place of power_ ring through his head, and Jon wonders distantly if Elias is weaker out here. Perhaps out here he’ll be vulnerable to all the questions that burn in Jon’s throat. Wishful thinking. Elias would never take Jon somewhere he wouldn’t have the upper hand.

Elias’ car is very posh, with heated leather seats that have built in massagers, but Jon can’t really appreciate it. He also can’t keep track of where they’re going because he’s forced to spend the entire car ride hunched forward to keep the jostling away from his sensitive back. It’s uncomfortable and he feels ridiculous. At one point, Elias reaches over and rubs a little circle into the point of Jon’s spine right between the bumps. It feels so indescribably comforting that Jon forces himself to think angry thoughts as loud as he can to dissuade Elias from doing it again.

Finally, they reach their destination and Jon steps out of the car to see a rather dignified looking townhouse. White with austere dark green shutters and door. A sinking feeling settles in the pit of Jon’s stomach.

“Where are we?”

“My home, of course.”

Of course. From one place of power to another.

Jon briefly pauses to consider how much this all feels like a trap. He is literally being lured to Elias’ house with the promise of information with no guarantees he’ll get it, or what it will cost. Something in Jon doggedly believes that Elias would never hurt him, despite all evidence to the contrary, but there are things Elias wants from him that are worse than his pain. Jon takes one guilty look at the sidewalk stretching off towards the horizon and then follows Elias to the house.

Stepping inside, Jon feels oddly comfortable. The house is familiar to him in a way that briefly feels supernatural, before Jon realizes it’s because it has the exact same furnishings as the Institute. Same empty beige walls and dark wood furniture. _Makes sense since Elias designed both_ Jon thinks, but the thought is gone too quickly to process if it’s something he Knows or just assumed. Elias is moving around with practiced efficiency, hanging his briefcase and coat and putting shoe horns into his leather spats before lining them up neatly on a shoe rack. Jon stares at Elias’ dress socks like he can’t quite parse the concept.

Elias turns back to smile at him indulgently. “I don’t exist purely in pressed suits, you know.”

“You certainly seem to.”

“Well.” Elias turns away to walk further into his house. “You never really took the time to try and know me. Make yourself at home, Jon.”

Jon briefly considers leaving his shoes on just in case he needs to make a hasty exit, but he looks at the brightly polished wood floors and imagines the sharp line of Elias’ disapproval. He does his best to line them up neatly on the shoe rack.

“Ah, Lydia! Perfect timing, I was so hoping I would catch you here.”

Jon progresses deeper into the house, following Elias’ voice. He rounds the corner and finds him standing with a middle aged woman, lines pressing into the soft fat of her face. She has dark hair pulled into a messy bun and a wide-sleeved shirt embroidered with flowers. Elias is touching her upper arm in a familiar way and she is staring into his eyes, enraptured and unable to look away. Her hands nervously twist a dust rag around and around and around.

“Jon.” Elias turns away from Lydia and she looks bereft, trying desperately to meet his gaze again. “This is my housekeeper, Lydia. I think you would both benefit from speaking to one another.”

When Jon looks at her he feels an odd buzzing in his skull, vibrating behind his eyes. It’s a familiar sensation, one that has been growing stronger recently. An ache that lets him know a statement giver is outside his door, even before they knock. Jon looks down at his hand and it is gripping a gently whirring tape recorder. When he looks back up, Elias is smiling.

“You just happen to employ someone with a statement?” Jon lets the acid in his voice show just how unlikely a coincidence he thinks that is.

“I am not in the business of happening to do anything. It’s always good to be prepared for cases of emergency like this.”

Bile rises in Jon’s throat. “For me. You did this for me.”

“Well you are the Archivist. As much as I enjoy them on an...intellectual level, statements bring me little.”

“How long have you been planning this?”

“Planning _for_ this, Jon. Not planning it. I hoped we might end up here but you have achieved this all on your own. My only role now is to help you make the transition as smoothly and painlessly as possible. This,” Elias gestures to Lydia as if she is merely a file folder, “will help.”

“Did you do this to her?” Jon doesn’t know why this is important but it is. “Her statement, is it about you?”

“Don’t be foolish. Of course not. This one has been marked by the Lonely for years. Only kind of domestic servant to have, really. Efficient and quiet, never underfoot.”

Jon stares at Lydia. Elias’ insistence turns his stomach, but everything in him is yearning towards her. He is hyper-aware of her presence, can’t take his attention from her. She has a statement. He wants to hear it. Elias moves them into a small sitting room, and Jon does not resist. He lets himself be seated on a pale green couch, not even flinching as Elias’ fingers ghost over his shoulder blades.  
Elias seats himself in an armchair in the corner of the room, behind Jon but in full view of the conversation. Jon can feel his gaze like heat on his skin. He imagines taking a statement with Elias’ eyes on him. Seeing the raw shape of his hunger. Watching his weakness, knowing his strength. He shudders as he places the tape recorder on the coffee table. 

“Statement of...”

“Lydia Thomas.”

“Lydia Thomas regarding...”

“A man I met on the docks, the morning of my 30th birthday.”

Elias guides Lydia out when she finishes speaking. His hand is firm on the small of her back as he thanks her and gives her the rest of the day off. On the couch, Jon slumps, feeling heady and full. It’s a good feeling, like laying all day in the sun, or finishing a satisfying novel. And he feels stronger, the pain in his back receding. He closes his eyes, letting himself drift for a bit. 

“There. Isn’t that better?”

Jon’s mood instantly sours. He glares up and Elias is standing before him, looking down with a saccharine smile. “This isn’t what I came here for.”

“Taking care of yourself is important, Jon, though I know it’s rarely your priority. But the more you learn, the faster they grow. I was merely trying to curtail your suffering.”

“The faster what grows, Elias? You still haven’t told me what. They. Are.”

Elias pushes aside the tape recorder and sits on the coffee table, somehow still managing to look smug and superior. He tucks his chin a bit, his eyes never leaving Jon’s. “Come now, you can do better than that.”

Jon grits his teeth and presses power into his voice. “ **What are they?** ”

Elias shivers but doesn’t blink. “Harder.”

“ **What ARE they?** ”

“If you want it, take it.” Elias drags in a ragged breath. His eyes burn into Jon. “Rip it out. Take what’s _yours_ , Jonathan.”

Jon surges forward with a growl, grabs Elias’ tie, and pulls. “ **TELL. ME.** ”

“Wings!” Elias’ voice is equal parts pained and euphoric. “Wings, wings, beautiful wings full of the eyes of Beholding.”

Elias drops his head back, eyes rolling up a bit, the tension draining from him now that he’s answered the question. Jon stays silent, breathing heavily. The growths, the _wings_ , are bigger. He can feel it. He can feel the skin stretching taut around them ready to burst. Slowly, he uncurls his fingers one by one from Elias’s crushed necktie.

“Oh, my Archivist.” Jon doesn’t move as Elias leans back in and cups his face, rubbing gentle circles with his thumb. “Oh my beautiful Archivist.”

“What did you make me do?” Jon’s voice is flat, emptied of power.

“I think in this instance, the proper question is what you made me do.”

“You wanted this.”

Elias smiles and despite himself, Jon feels warmed by the knowledge that Elias did want this, all of this. That he’s being guided. That Elias knows what he’s becoming, and is proud of him for it. 

“Take off your shirt,” Elias says, and Jon is far beyond the point of arguing. He feels dizzy, with knowing, with being known, with a thrumming in the muscles of his back that is growing more insistent. 

He pulls his jumper up over his head with shaking hands. Elias doesn’t help, just waits and watches. When he casts his shirt to the side Jon starts to turn, to let Elias inspect his back, but he’s stopped by a strong hand on his arm. Elias pulls him back to face forward, meeting his eyes with a hungry intensity.

“Let me see you.” Jon feels undone beneath Elias’ gaze. It rakes over his chest, circling each scar, mapping his flesh and bones. Elias traces his fingers in the path of his eyes, and Jon is not sure which burns him more. For a moment he wonders drunkenly if Elias will ask for more, ask for him to bare more to his knowing. Leave Jon naked and transparent before the eyes of himself and his god. He shivers with the fear of a man, and the exultation of a creature born to be seen. Paged through like a book, read and known and lived like a statement, by Elias, his watcher.

Elias pulls him forward suddenly, so that Jon lands leaning against his chest, head resting sideways on Elias’s shoulder. Jon’s chest rubs against the starched cotton of Elias’ shirt and he closes his eyes, drinking in the unfamiliar sensation. He waits, hanging in the held breath of Elias’s hands hovering over his back. When they land, it is so much more than he anticipated. Each point of pressure sends spasms wracking through Jon, forcing him to curl his hands into tight fists in Elias’s shirt to keep himself from falling. Elias massages Jon’s unfamiliar muscles, setting them twitching. It feels like every nerve of his body has coalesced under Elias’ hands so he can strum them all at once.

“Ah, E-Elias,” Jon gasps out, and he hates how desperate he sounds. He turns and bites Elias’ shoulder, letting the fabric fill his mouth and trap Elias’ name in his throat. But it can’t stop the needy moans that whine out around it, and Elias’ hands press more insistently into him as if testing his resolve. Trying to break him.

“Then came an angel of the Lord,” Elias whispers into Jon’s ear as he writhes beneath his hands. In his mouth the words are coarse and dirty. “Made of wings and eyes, who saw the sins of man and laid them bare before the Almighty.” 

Jon lifts his mouth from Elias’ shoulder, breathing hard against the spit-slicked fabric. “You don’t believe in god.”

“Says who?”

Jon sits up, staring at Elias. “You never believed in god, even before all of this.”

Elias smirks and their eyes reflect endlessly into each other. “I make my own gods.” 

“You,” Jon says, “did not make me.”

“No,” Elias reaches out again to stroke Jon’s hair and he leans into it, chasing him despite himself. “No, I did not. I nudged and guided and hoped but you...you exceeded all my expectations, Jonathan. My beautiful, perfect Archivist. So close to completion. I could give that to you. All my knowledge.”

Jon’s breath catches in his throat. He searches Elias’ face, probing at his mind as if the promised knowledge is simply waiting there for him to find. His wings twitch inside his skin. He wants it. He craves it.

“Please, Elias.”

“Well.” Elias smooths a thumb over Jon’s cheek, smiling indulgently. “Since you’ve been so good today.”

Kissing Elias is strange because it feels so normal. So unnervingly human. Elias’ mouth is warm and possessive, pushing into Jon with an insistence that Jon can’t help but echo. It is good and wrong and terrifying and he doesn’t want to let it end. Elias slides a hand up his spine, pushing him forward at the point right between his shoulder blades and Jon melts into him. Then something sparks in the corner of Jon’s mind and he feels Elias pressing in. He barely has a moment to gasp into Elias’ mouth before he tumbles off the edge.

The knowing spreads through him like fire, and he grips Elias’ shirt in white-knuckled fists. His only anchor from the storm in his brain. It is Elias, it is being Elias, it is watching Jon through Elias’ eyes and seeing himself and knowing Elias as Elias knows him. There is pride and pain and devotion and a screaming desire that brings tears to Jon’s eyes. He tastes them, salty, as they drip into the mouth Elias is still kissing. It is too much and it is not enough and it is everything Jon has ever wanted and feared and Jon thinks maybe he is actually screaming but he can’t hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears.

And then, pain shoots through him. The tearing of his skin is impossibly loud. Blood is dripping hot down his back, staining Elias’ hand where he forces Jon close. The wings, he can feel them, he knows them, spread out of him bloody and beautiful and triumphant. Jon stretches them as far as they can go, ignoring the painful thrumming of his untested muscles. Elias pulls away from him but somehow, the eyes he fixes on Jon now feel more intimate than the kiss could ever be.

Elias lifts his hand from Jon’s back and wipes away the tears that are still coursing unheeded down Jon’s face. He leaves streaks of Jon’s own blood behind his fingers. Jon trembles and Elias trembles with him, the link between them almost tangible enough to snap. Slowly, without words, Jon lets go of Elias’ shirt and slides from the couch. He hits his knees with a soft thump on the plush carpeting.  
Jon kneels before Elias and bows forward, his head drooping down between Elias’ knees, his bloody wings spread as far as they will go. One by one, eyes open in his feathers, fixing on the man before him. Pinning him like a moth to a board. Thousands of eyes. All of them for Elias. 

Finally, Jon sees him. He sees and sees him a thousand times over. A thousand eyes, a thousand thousand Eliases. He sees him as he is, and he sees him as he was, and he sees him as he will be. The Elias to his coworkers, to his friends, to his family when he had one, to his lovers. Elias through his own eyes, through Jon's eyes, through the million insignificant eyes that pass over him every day and know nothing. He sees them all, knows them all, like a shattered mirror reflecting a billion different images that are all simultaneously and equally true.

Elias tries to speak but there is nothing. He is nothing. He is a pile of experiences wrapped in flesh and in an instant, Jon has been them all. He is emptied. He is bare before his god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire story has been a sublimation of my desire to be gently rubbed on the back....thank u for indulging me.
> 
> Thank u to @Somnuscribe and @Twodrunkencelestials for feedback and encouragement! And thanks to everyone who commented so far because really, this wouldn't have happened if not for you. I function entirely off of the approval of strangers. 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr @apatheticbutterflies I post writing and meta and all I want in the world is to talk to someone about the Magnus Archives.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write stuff this weird, but I blame this on everyone who draws beautiful pictures of Jon with wings covered in eyes. There's a sequel scene to this where Jon sleeps with his head in Martin's lap while Martin strokes his wings until a bunch of eyes open in the feathers, but I couldn't really make it fit. There's also a secret companion fic in my jonelias loving heart where Jon does spend a week getting his wing nubs fussed over by Elias >:) Please please please come find and yell at me on my tumblr @apatheticbutterflies I post tma meta and fanfic!!!!


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